The Dragon in Winter
by wintry
Summary: Epilogue- FINISHED (really, this time). Draco and Harry, in the Great Hall, find what they've come to desire, mixed with snow. This is possibly the fluffiest thing I've ever written.
1. Chapter 1: Leafless

**Chapter 1: Leafless**

_The Great Hall; __December 21, 1997__; about __11 PM___

"It's snowing outside, you know. If you want to stare, it might be nicer to be out there than lying around in here."

"You would notice, wouldn't you? Why don't you come in?"

Draco didn't reply. 

The Great Hall was dark and beautiful at this late hour, all shadows and blue-gray fantasy. Lying on his back with his hands folded behind his head, Harry could see nothing but the sky above. The light sketched patterns across his face that would have been imperceptible if the fires were kept burning. He was pungently real in all this winter.

Draco couldn't help but gaze intently at him, but intent on what? It was difficult to say. The doorway, stretching upward with the vaulted ceiling, stood open before him, but he wouldn't enter. 

"What exactly did you come here for, Malfoy? If you want it that much, I would give it back to you." 

"I know." He paused, contemplating. "I didn't come to take it back. Here-,"

Draco threw a bundled cloth towards him. It landed noiselessly by Harry's wand hand, and although he didn't look away from the sky, he moved to grip it, feeling the smooth texture of the fabric skim off his fingertips. 

The invisibility cloak.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

_Care of Magical Creatures; __September 20, 1997_; about 10 AM__

The day had broken windy. Standing with his arms tucked stiffly about himself, Draco found them going numb and shifted position. 

That damn Hagrid. Barely a man, not mention a teacher- he'd never heard such a stuttering lecture in his life. 

Today, they were to 'chat with the centaurs'. It was a simple procedure, but Hagrid was going over all behavioral, social, and biological facts related to the beasts that came to mind. Listening distractedly, Draco wore the same sneering expression that was as familiar to him as his own last name, but threw no effort into it. The gesture was false today. It was a burden to play his own role again and again, but by now he felt naked without it. 

The centaurs came parading so regally out of the forest that it made him feel he should have worn his best dress robes. There was dignity in those creatures; he felt somehow slighted. 

They made their introductions with eloquent vagueness and a sense of condescension, before diffusing to make polite conversation. _Of course, they favored the Gryffindors; it had always been noble, intelligent beasts for the chivalrous, and ugly, dim-witted beasts for the wicked. _

Not that it mattered any more, the Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry, because nothing mattered but passing the days without disturbance. Create no trouble, and no one would trouble him in return.

Back in reality, Harry Potter was, naturally, the hub of it all, not to mention the class. The most familiar with the centaurs, he had found a large audience and was talking pleasantly, if not animatedly, to those gathered around him. Granger and Weasley had of course tagged along, and several other Gryffindors were making themselves heard at the edge of their crowd. 

Draco sighed. Time to exchange a few remarks, nothing too difficult or controversial, and get it done. It seemed purely chance that the only centaur that he recognized was the one strayed farthest from Harry. He'd caught a glimpse of this one when it had parted with Potter during that vile detention. 

The resemblance was uncanny. The centaur was a slender palomino with hair of the same white-blond that Draco's had been from birth and cloudy blue eyes that looked as if they had been dimmed. 

As Draco approached, the centaur trotted toward him, his hooves dragging on unfamiliar grounds, and sniffed him searchingly. "A Malfoy."

"Yes, Draco. It's a pleasure-,"

"Let me shake your hand." Taken aback, Draco offered his left hand nevertheless. Oddly, the centaur shook using his right, grasping Draco's fingers but not his palm- it felt awkward, gripping his hand like that, and Draco noticed he held it a bit longer than was normal.

"You are cold, Draco Malfoy. Your hand is cold as snow. Tell me, then- is your right the same?"

"Couldn't you assume that?" he asked. 

"You are not normal, and I cannot treat you as such. Give me your right."

Draco presented his hand a bit hesitantly. The arm was covered halfway to the elbow in a dragon-hide gauntlet. As the centaur took his hand, he frowned, probing the texture, and began pulling off the glove finger by finger.

"Stop." Draco wrenched his arm away. The centaur was unsurprised. In explanation, Draco continued, "You don't want to see that hand. It's...injured. It's why I have it covered up."

"I know." 

Readjusting his glove, Draco turned his gaze to the distance uneasily. "I didn't catch your name."

The centaur opened its mouth to reply, but paused as if in anticipation. Why became apparent soon enough; Ronald Weasley, looking just short of livid, came thundering across the clearing and slammed Draco against the wall.

"Where the hell did you put it, Malfoy?!" he roared, bunching up the fabric of Draco's shoulders in his tight fists. Potter and Granger were jogging towards them at a distance. 

"Leave me alone, Weasley," replied Draco tonelessly. "What the bloody hell are you talking about?" This was no time for confrontation

"Don't tell me you don't know, you bloody prat, or I'll have to pound that ugly f-,"

"Ron, calm down." Hermione, having arrived, placed a hand on Weasley's heaving shoulders. "He has to have it, for heaven's sake, there's no need to waste your breath threatening him." She glanced over to him, pinned to the wall and as unruffled as always . "You do have it, don't you, Malfoy?"

Feeling idiotic for doing so, Draco played along wearily. He was so tired, had been since the week before September. "Have _what? How long must__ I wait until someone explains what's going on? " _

"My cloak." Harry spoke for the first time, twice as composed as Ron was, yet still distinctly furious. Draco found nothing threatening about his physique, but the way his lips were pressed so tightly together, and the life in his eyes - there was something there that Draco had not felt pumping through his veins for the last few weeks, and it unnerved him. Emotion. Heart. Drive and passion.

_Recover, damn it. Don't let them get to you._

"I don't have anything of yours, Potter. And I don't need any cloak of yours either, I had a new set made for this year."

Harry checked his expression for reliability. "Not a school cloak, Malfoy." 

The centaur stood just outside of involvement range, remaining silent and looking pleasantly amused. It irritated Draco. They all seemed to collaborating- was this some sort of plot against him? Whatever it was, they hadn't come up with anything logical enough for understanding. "What kind of cloak could it be, then?" 

Looking uneasy, Harry frowned. "You must know. Just…give it back, Malfoy. I don't want to fight you."

"I never said anything about fighting. Get off, Weasley." Reluctantly, Ron unclenched his fists and backed away. Draco dusted off his shoulders. "Why do you need this cloak of yours so much, anyway?" '_You must have a few cloaks; you're not exactly dirt-poor like Weasley here,' he heard himself add, his voice monotone. _

They heard no change. Ron growled. "Don't push it, Malfoy," said Harry. "And if I answered you, it's not as if you would give it back either way."

"No," Draco agreed. "I wouldn't, as I don't have it in the first place. Leave me in peace; I've got to finish my conversation with…" He trailed off, having not heard the centaur's name.

"Firenze," Harry supplied between clenched teeth. "Malfoy, this cloak is just…important. To me. Give it back now, or-,"

"Or what?" asked Draco tiredly. Enough already. "Are you waiting for a tip or something?" He lifted the hem of his robes, and for one alarmed moment Harry thought he was stripping. Instead, he untied a drawstring bag from the belt of his trousers, and withdrew a galleon. "Here, Potter, catch."

He flicked the golden coin so it tumbled through the air- the way it flipped seemed averse to leaving Draco's gloved fingers, catching the wind and sunlight artificially, and Draco realized his mistake seconds after Potter disappeared. 

"Oh god…bloody hell- damn it! Potter, shit… Potter!-" He swore, horrified with the first fevered emotion he had felt in the longest time. A deadly reaction settled into the pit of his stomach. Realization is a terrible thing; it was entirely unthinkable, and yet-

He had sent Harry Potter to the Manor. 


	2. Chapter 2: Frostbitten

**Chapter 2: Frostbitten**

_The Great Hall; December 1997; about __11 PM___

The invisibility cloak- Harry smiled and pulled it up against his chest. While he hadn't risked showing it in front of Malfoy, he had been so frightened, terrified that the one thing he owned that had belonged to his father was stolen, forever. It was this passionate fear that overwhelmed the fury within him, made him more deeply bitten when he had tumbled away into some strange unknown. 

Which reminded him-

"I should have given it back first. Being the good guy, and all."

Draco laughed- Harry could hear the wooden ring to it, a deadened sound without any true spirit thrown in, like a real laugh. "If you played knight in shining armor year round, you wouldn't be alive right now."

"I guess not. At least I try; more than I can say of you."

"Yes, you do try." He seemed to acknowledge yet ignore the statement. "It's all part of you, trying like that all the time. Keeps you sane as well." 

"You're not sane, then?" 

_You're__ concerned? "It's impossible for a dead man to be sane."_

"You're not dead yet, Malfoy." Harry sounded so firmly assured that Draco could almost imagine that it was true. But both he and Harry knew the truth.

Harry sat up, a corner of the cloak balled up between his hands like a childhood blanket. It was somehow endearing. Withdrawing a sachet from his pocket, his fingers found a knotted string. He untied it, and then tipped it open so that a galleon rolled onto the table. Draco stared at it piercingly, looking frozen in the doorway. 

"Come in, Draco. I'm won't hurt you." He didn't sound pitying, like the phrase might imply; it was simply an offer. It was there, that damn coin that had been kept from him for so bloody long. 

The galleon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_Malfoy Manor; __September 20, 1997__; about __10 AM___

"Here, Potter, catch." He smirked in the way that was patently Malfoy, so habitually that it seemed natural for that smugness to be there. He cocked his head a little bit, standing with his back to the low wall of Hagrid's hut, and tossed a galleon in a quick wrist movement. Harry snapped his hand up to catch it mechanically.

The coin fell neatly into his palm as if molded to sit in his grasp; Harry barely had enough time to think about it before he felt an unpleasantly familiar jolt behind his navel. _Oh, for God's sakes, not again. _

He seemed to have consistently bad luck with portkeys. 

Falling to his knees, Harry quickly brushed the dirt off his trousers and stood up to survey the predicament he had found himself in. Damn this soil; black, and clinging on him like-

It wasn't soil.

Charred and unstable, wood beams speared into the air around him, some rocking with a wind that shook the hilltops. He could faintly make out a structure, a sort of order that was oddly geometrical. The land was covered in a dusting of charcoal, from the walls burnt away in what had to have been a bonfire. It was sickening, standing among the skeletal remains of what had been a grand house, and the lingering smell of smoke in the air made the reality all the more hideously genuine. 

He wandered around a bit, and there was marble tile beneath his feet, intricately fitted together in a mosaic of earth tones. This was a wasteland, utterly, utterly desolate like hell itself. The charcoal stirred in restless circles, troubling Harry. He clutched his wand tightly, wondering and wondering but not truly wanting to know. In fact, he dreaded it.

_What did Malfoy want from this place? _

At the end of a long driveway paved with brick designs there stood a wrought-iron gate. It was neither elaborate nor beautiful, but a thing of stern principle and purpose; the long bars ended in pointed, spear-like heads. Welded to the middle was a plaque, also iron, and Harry could not see what it read from this angle. Forcing his fingertips through the opening, he pried the gates open. They heaved a long, shrill scream from disuse that sent a cold feeling down his neck, but he ignored it, pressed to read that sign. 

In the end, it read nothing.

There had been letters there at some point, gold-plated judging by the shining outlines rubbed onto the iron. They must have been taken away or stolen, but either way the words were gone and the traces left behind unreadable. Harry swore. If he hadn't seen the expression of horror on Malfoy's face, Harry would have believed that this was all a hoax to make him feel some sort of sympathy.

"What are you hiding here, Malfoy?" he asked aloud angrily. "Why do you need my bloody cloak?" He said it as if he expected an answer, but ultimately only the wind answered in a breathy howl, like a ghost. He shuddered.

There was nothing left to see. Unsatisfied, Harry glanced at the coin, rolling it around in his palm and, sighing, tossed it upwards so that it twisted once and fell neatly back into his fingers. The portkey caught him as if hurrying him away from the ruins of a mansion and back into the safety of Hogwarts' shadow. 

Back to get answers from Draco Malfoy. 


	3. Chapter 3: Hibernation

**Chapter 3: Hibernation**

_The Great Hall; December 1997; about __11 PM___

Draco paced in with measured steps, back aligned so vertically as if challenging the doors to refuse him. He was nearly out of their reach when he stopped, as if something had risen that needed to be answered.

Harry watched wordlessly as Draco turned again to face the door. He would not have been angry if the other boy had walked out and left. However, Draco only stood there, scrutinizing the doors, looking for some flaw or flame. 

And then, he began to strike. 

The sudden violence seemed unnatural, coming from Draco Malfoy. He was not a peaceful boy by nature, but it was such a strong show of emotion that the action was abnormal. He beat his fists against them; they would not yield, and he continued pummeling in fluid repetition until the hall resonated with the sound of his blows. His face was calm, a forced calm that had been built up and could not be stripped away, while his hands were frenzied and soon bloodied by rage. 

Harry could only watch, the snow-light haloing his dark hair. Draco's blows fell evenly, turning his anger into grace, a controllable fury that was unlike a tantrum and unlike a brawl, but instead meticulous revenge.

When it was done, he sank to his knees, his breaths heaving yet still so calculated, as if gauged for the most emphatic result. It was perfection; a difficult thing to master, and yet Harry could look to Draco and see it passed off day to day. The boy had precision, flawed, now, by fire.

Draco closed his eyes to the blood pulsing down his fists. It slid over pale muscle on one arm and dragon-hide on the other; he raised both hands, ran them along the door slowly. 

Wood equaled fire, his greatest fear, and he saw it all again with his eyes dull and lightless. The beginning of an endless winter. It was hard to remember, now, that there had been life before that fateful ending, when the snow was still controlled above him. 

Yes, before that ending day.

The burning day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_Malfoy Manor; __August 25, 1997__; about __3 PM___

It was summertime again, and there was something about Draco Malfoy that refused to believe in summer. Even in late August, with the season at its most potent in the course of the week before school, the fact was painfully evident.

It wasn't quite the skin that seemed untouched by his seventeen years, or the eyes that looked like snowy shadows; more, the feeling in the careful way he judged his footfalls on the path, a stark contrast against the year's lazy months. The manner in which he shifted his arms with grace that made every stride a mission accomplished.

It was the way that the boy built a winter around himself, no matter the season. 

Of course, he had never liked summer. Despite this, he was strolling across the grounds with no particular aim in mind. This was ultimately peculiar- every other action was premeditated, always strategizing, like the snowflake that waits for the most surreal instant to fall. There was never a moments rest, never a moments sleep and peace. Only cold calculation, as cold as snow. 

It was what he most feared. To lose it all and watch as the snowdrifts so carefully planted in his life came plunging down. It was why he looked on to September 1, and saw the first day of the last year of his life. 

He had always known there was a world outside Hogwarts. In all his years there the outside world was like a legend, a myth. A scary story to frighten you until you left the lamps burning at night beside your bed. But now…_now, it was all too tangible, and he was more frightened by it than any nighttime fear could cause. _

Come time, the years would pass and he would wake to find himself the cold old man atop the hill, with the ministry job and the trophy wife, both which he had never loved. He would have that son, the one you _knew you would grow up despising. That snobbish, spoiled prat of a son that he feared to confront. _

All would come fluttering down. 

Enough walking. He stood on the edge of Malfoy land- he hadn't realized he had come so far, where a line of evergreens stood sentinel and marked the end of propriety and the entrance to the Muggle world. Several meters from this line was a different tree, this one old and grand, towering brilliantly above him, and attached to its ample trunk was a box. Portkeys were distributed strategically about the grounds contained within these simple boxes, for emergencies and Draco's own convenience. He withdrew the galleon tucked within and felt himself yanked into some magic's control. 

The heat was simply unbearable, like summer temperatures taken to the worst possible degree and multiplied. The foyer was in flames. As Draco appeared, falling to his knees and feeling them jolt on the marble, his sight caught on a family portrait wreathed in orange licks of fire and spread, horrified, from there. Everything- the curving oak stairwell was an arc of fire sidling down from the upper story, the roses his mother had put out this morning were already burned away and smoking heavily. He could not breath, he could not think, and he had lunged for the doorknob to escape when his father stumbled in.

"Save me!" he shrieked. Draco could only stare, his father's robes burning across his shoulders and back. "Help, _Draco, save me! Save me- my Lord, he was angry- Draco!" His blackened fingers curled around the hem of his robes, leaving a trail of charcoal. "Please! He has cast a spell, I cannot leave the house!-," Horror, the horror, his skin of his face burned away and his eyes- oh, his eyes, red like a demon's, red and tearing and…_

Run.

Run, get out, "Get away from me!"

"Draco!" His words slurred into one continuous scream. His hair had begun burning. Draco tried to pry his hands away, the fingers of his other hand working the doorknob in desperation. The ceiling was on fire, with its ornate beams blazing and the gold trim clattering down around them as the woodwork burned away. The door was open- the air was clear outside. His father still clutched at him so that he could not escape and run, ignore that feeling of obligation and the smoke so heavy and so suffocating and so desolate-

"Get off! Bloody hell, get off me!" He kicked disdainfully as if uncaring, while the fear and the agony simmered excruciatingly within him; Father screamed, pawing at his burning face. The heavy beams began to fall. _Get out, get out, what the hell are you doing in here, get off_-

The sleeve of his left arm caught fire from his father's hair. Screaming, screeching, so loud and so, so horrible, _help, let go of me, get off, peel away your dirty, dirty hands, screaming as if he was being tortured at the gates of hell, an endless struggle. He pulled desperately away, crawling for the door just out of reach. _

_"Avada Kedavra!"_ His father fell limp as Draco lowered his wand, the screams sinking down his throat and finding refuge in the silent thing that had been his cold heart. Draco's own screams echoed, and he ran, ran, ran and cascaded down the steps. Hell, bloody hell, and he was the devil, the wand in his hand smoldering. The Manor, flames lighting every window, was bizarre and oddly beautiful, reminding him of candlelight.

There was no snow to make the horror hiss away in steam.

There were no words to heal his burns.

There was only the Dark Mark, invisible in a cloak of haze.  


	4. Chapter 4: First Breath

**Chapter 4: First Breath**

_The Great Hall; December 1997; about __11 PM___

Harry soothed him silently, healing his wounds so that new scar tissue gleamed white against paler white. Draco could feel the gentle sensation of hands glancing off his mended flesh, that fluttering titillation, and wondered what had changed. 

Together, they sat on the Gryffindor table, the galleon and the cloak offered between them like penances for all past sin and enmity. This was in itself unreal, weird and wonderful like a mixture of snow and starlight.. A gift for when the ice world got too beautiful for abandonment. 

What had changed? Some remarkable coincidence of fate or folly? He found himself led to the fight that begun and ended so many things. Draco tipped back his head to watch the snow falling, the snow that had melted peaceably from his life.

Collision.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_Care of Magical Creatures; __September 20, 1997_; about 10:30 AM__

Draco shot out his arm, hand clutching at where empty air had been moments earlier. His fingers clawed a grip, trembling with rage and horror, and seized Harry by the front of his robes. 

"_What the hell did you see?_" he snarled, his voice low and shaking with hatred. His eyes flashed dangerously, cheeks glowed pink and Harry seemed stunned, wordless. "_You're going to tell me, now, Potter. Answer me...answer me, you shit- answer me now._"

Hermione forcibly restrained Ron from jumping Draco. Firenze was gone, as were the other centaurs; they had returned to the forest some time ago. Class had ended, though the three had waited in hopes that Harry would return- they had made up some sort of excuse for his absence, fed Hagrid, Crabbe, and Goyle some half-muttered story. 

"Tell me." 

Harry was pale, trembling though Draco had stopped shaking him. He closed his eyes a moment, regaining composure, and swallowed. He did not wish to open them again; those silver eyes had never came so close, or gleamed so brightly, and he noticed now that they only gleamed because they were glassy, like a doll's. 

"Give me-…give me my cloak back." 

"I don't have your bloody cloak, you arse. Tell me what you saw there. Tell me what you saw, and give me my coin back, or I-,"

"Or what, Malfoy?" Ron interjected. "Are you waiting for a tip or something?" Draco glanced automatically to the galleon, peeking glimpses of the sun through Harry's fingers. 

"I never meant to give him that coin," said Draco, eying it with something stronger than greed. "I made…a mistake."  

"You very well did," said Harry suddenly. He pocketed the coin. "You're not getting this back until I get my cloak." With this, he made for the castle, leaving a smug Ron, an anxious Hermione, and an infuriated Draco Malfoy. 

"Fuck you," he hissed, seething. "Fuck you, Potter."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_Potions; __September 20, 1997__; about 11:15 AM_

Draco spent the rest of the day hunting down that Potter. He had the coin, he had it, it was no longer tucked away, secure and within reach…the consequences began to filter in through his ears. If the whole school knew; if the whole damn school found out what had happened, found out that his family was in ruins and his father was dead…

_I'm__ going to kill you Potter. He strode down the corridors, jostling those who _dared _cross his path to that dead man and probing into any opening that he could find. If all of Hogwarts knew- the shame would be simply unbearable. An unsettled feeling burned in his stomach with furious intensity; emotion, unused for so long, was concentrated and severe when finally released. __Find you and curse you until you can't feel yourself for all the pain. _

Harry was nowhere to be seen until Potions. Draco watched him find his seat, settling down slowly while avoiding all eyes. Harry made careful conversation with those around them, finding smiles and laughter in his voice when he obviously felt none. He looked ashen. 

The professor entered soon after. Whatever they were learning, whatever Snape was going on about- Draco, for once, didn't give a damn and heard none of it. Throughout class he stared at Potter fiercely, as if hate itself could bore a gaping hole through the back of Harry's skull. 

Meanwhile, he listened. The rumors would start soon, fueled by the words of revenge. They would twist their way through the ears of every insignificant student, curl within every mind and pull up the corners of every mouth into that mocking smile he knew so well. He would be turned upon, disgraced, and feel the cold light of that smile multiplied tenfold and turned on him. 

He would crumble.

The snow would shudder down.

It was inevitable, yet he wanted to know when the rumors began, and so he listened ever more intently with eyes aimed to kill. There was nothing but the usual banter, whispered in soft undertones with a feeling of urgent secrecy. School-talk. Girl-talk. 

Silence on talk of Draco Malfoy. 

Harry was silent as well, feeling faintly assuaged but not enough to lay the matter to rest. The whole matter was working in his favor; there was only so long that even Draco could hold out, and Harry had struck the ultimate compromise in blackmail. He had definitely hit a nerve with that coin; he could feel its weight in his pocket, tapping against his thigh every time he shifted. With the portkey as proof, he could bring Draco to ruin, sever all those high connections that the Slytherin depended upon and leave him, broken, on the ground.

There was a distant discomfort in the idea. The loss of the invisibility cloak seemed to drive options into his head that he would have dubbed immoral before, but there were still those same principles, beating in that same heart. The heart of a true Gryffindor. 

Bull shit.

Noble heart or no noble heart, he could only ignore the guilty angel whispering in one ear, and hear out the human boy calling into the other, demanding what little was left of his heart's desire to be returned. There was no other way.

Hah. Bull shit. 

He screwed his brow together and remembered the wasteland that could only have been Draco's home. The galleon was its doorway; with it in his pocket, there was a sense of power, of control that he could manipulate to achieve his needs.

The cold charred remains of a childhood.

The things he could wheedle out of Malfoy, the revenge he could take for years of annoyance.

Malfoy's pride would be broken, the only thing left in his life.

Malfoy's pride could _finally_ be broken; he would no longer be a rival in life.

The cloak. The galleon.

He sighed, wanting to bury his head in his arms or beat it against the table, but contented himself at staring into space.

"3 points from Gryffindor for Potter's daydreaming. You are here to learn as students, not to solve the great and pointless mysteries of your private life." 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_The Corridors; __September 20, 1997__; about __12 PM___

"Harry!" Hermione hissed urgently. "Walk faster, will you?"

The trio left Potions class, picking their way through the crowds on their way to lunch. Hermione, usually full of book-related chatter and cheery frankness, seemed particularly anxious and high-strung today. She kept an eye over her shoulder, and both she and Ron crowded Harry as they walked.

"Seeing basilisks again, Hermione?" Harry asked, attempting a light tone. Ron scowled. 

"Malfoy's stalking you over that stupid galleon- can't imagine where it would lead to that could be so bloody important," he said slowly, with a bitter edge. He and Hermione had not asked what had happened on the other side of the portkey, though it was obvious they expected him to reveal it all eventually.

Harry remained silent on the matter. Until his final choice, there would be no telling; this one decision was certain in either case of exploitation or empathy. 

He shot a searching glance behind him as they turned a corner. A blond head was clearly on their trail. "I wouldn't worry about it. He's all talk and plotting; never managed to do anything before, has he? We can't let him faze us now."

"Oh Harry, I don't know. He seemed really angry, and I can't recall seeing him losing his temper like that before. He might murder you at night, in that condition."

"Everyone loses control sometimes, Hermione."

"Not Draco," replied Ron darkly. They entered the Great Hall and found themselves swallowed into conversation at the Gryffindor table. Beneath the table and openly spoken word, Harry traced the shape of the coin through his robes. He could feel the glare that had been focused on him throughout the day, sighed, and resigned to the mass indecision he had been struggling through for hours now. 

What is to be will be, he knew _that from experience. It was the substance heroes depended on for a living, and Harry was well used to it by now. What is to be will be._

"Come with me, Potter."


	5. Chapter 5: Awakening

**Chapter 5: Awakening**

_The Great Hall; December 1997; about __11 PM___

Harry found the light soft and hazy. The falling snow obscured the moonlight as it slid through the sweeping ceiling of the Great Hall, and it seemed oddly ironic that they should be caught here amid it all. 

"Potter." It was a question formed into a statement by the vacant nature of Draco's voice. 

"What, Malfoy?" 

"Is there a scar, there- around your finger?" 

Harry looked up at the Slytherin while stroking the base of his index finger. A smooth, white line ringed the flesh there. "Yes." 

"Oh." 

The ribbon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_The Great Hall; __September 20, 1997__; about __12:15 PM___

"Come with me, Potter."

Harry glanced up to find Professor Snape standing just behind him. "Where, Professor?"

"You must talk to me, privately," he replied. There was no disobeying such direct orders; Harry stood up slowly, ignoring the looks of anxious consolation he received. Following Snape, Harry exited the Great Hall and found himself heading for the dungeons. 

"Excuse me-,"

"If I remember correctly, Mr. Potter," Snape interrupted, "You made it clear that you dislike being referred to as a 'celebrity'. Or so I have found from previous experience." Harry agreed with an uncertain nod. 

"So you would not disagree if I were to say that you are not exempt from normal class activity?"

"Yes, Professor Snape," Harry replied, provoked and somewhat confused. They turned a corner and down a flight of steps. 

"This includes clean-up, which it seems you did not bother assisting in today-" Harry felt the need to protest, but kept silent. "- as Mr. Malfoy was so kind as to point out for me. Which would you prefer, Mr. Potter, yet another ten points from Gryffindor on your behalf, or finishing what should have been done before lunch?" 

Hah! - was there a choice?

They arrived at the dungeons, which were dark and vastly silent while the school was at lunch. Draco stood framed in the doorway, his face distantly angry. 

"I suppose you can handle this yourself, Mr. Potter? Mr. Malfoy had the kindness to offer to supervise you while I have my lunch." Snape walked off. Harry listened as the sound of boots echoed and faded, clutching his wand beneath his robes in anticipation.

Roughly, Draco shoved a damp rag into his hands and stalked into the classroom. "Start cleaning, Potter. I need to eat too, you know," he said icily, seating himself on an empty table. Harry entered cautiously, still holding his wand as if waiting for some hex to come flying at him. He looked up, suspecting Draco to be scornful, but the boy was only staring at him with an empty expression. 

Walking over to where he had worked this morning, he proceeded to run the cloth across the table, picking up the powdery remnants of knotgrass and dried nettles. It was a slow process with Draco Malfoy staring him down throughout, as if expecting him to explode under strain. His eyes were steady, never wandering, and if hatred had been a substantial thing, Harry was sure it would have been shooting out of those irises. He squirmed at being scrutinized so intensely. An odd sort of prickly feeling ran through his veins; it was certainly very unpleasant, like being vivisected. 

God, was Malfoy even _blinking_?!

"Malfoy!" he burst out suddenly, aggravated. "Stop staring, will you, and just…challenge me to a duel or something."

Draco eyed him, swinging his legs a little. "You think fighting solves everything, do you? It's not as simple as that- it's simpler. Just give my galleon back, Potter, and I won't have to hit you with a single curse."

"Not until you give me my cloak!" replied Harry angrily. 

A flash of irritation. "I don't have your bloody cloak! Merlin, Potter, is that all you care about? I'll buy you another damn cloak, get you one hundred cloaks worth much more than that _one_, but _I don't have it!!" he roared. _

"Nothing could mean more than that cloak," Harry growled beneath his breath, as if it was a threat. 

Silence. Draco was unsure of how to counter.

Harry was unsure whether or not to believe the sodding idiot. Draco Malfoy was one for dramatics, lying, and trickery. This was his sort of game. 

They waited there, waiting for either boy to concede. Neither wanted to back down. 

"You did see where the galleon took you." Draco did not have the introversion or dignity to look away; his gaze was the sort that made people uneasy and avert their eyes to break contact. 

Challenging, Harry held his gaze. "I did." There was confidence in that reply, no sympathy. 

"You can guess what it means."

"Yes, Malfoy, I can guess," he replied evenly, as if waiting for Draco's voice to waver. 

It would not come. "What are you going to do?"

Harry looked down at his hand clutching the rag and dropped it, then straightened his body. He drew himself up, paced up as if inviting confrontation, and stood there, feet planted at shoulder width. 

"I want to see you in pain," he said. His muscles grew taunt and stern in his face, making his young face commanding. It was the manner of a leader, willing to trade gallantry for results. "I want to see you off that high act of yours." 

In his shadow, Draco looked pale and exposed, but he managed to laugh. It was a dark, feeble sound. "You're nastier than I am, Potter. Congratulations." He chuckled again to himself, and could not stop his laughter. 

Harry stood resolute. "I'm a better person than you on any given day," he said coldly. 

"I wouldn't wish anyone pain, Potter, not even you." Draco stood up easily, his shoulders rocking a bit with silent laughter, and Harry quickly deemed him insane. 

"Liar." 

"As for my torture, you're too late for that."

"Am I?" asked Harry darkly.

"Hell, yes. I don't suppose it would be the same, Potter, if it wasn't my first time." He swayed a little as he moved forward, as if drunk. His eyes gleamed with mischief, rising above the weary gray. He walked forward and did not stop. "You would want to be the first; always have wanted."

He kissed him. Harry couldn't ignore the hands twisted into his hair, the lips pressed so pleadingly and submissively against his own. It was gentle; Harry had always expected his first kiss to be passionate, moved into fervor with all that love and desire, but somehow Draco kissed without passion. It was wrong, perversely wrong, and so terribly empty and emotionless. Even without it, he was breathless. 

However, Draco did stop, eventually, looking colder than he had to begin with. It was all wrong; Harry had seen couples just after they had kissed, and they held each other's gazes, looking flustered and pleased in wonderment. Draco looked away. There was no sign that anything had ever happened, and Harry felt wronged that his first should be so meaningless. 

"Too late, Potter." _You've_ just cursed me, Malfoy. _"You lose out." _

Harry stared, open-eyed, feeling cheated. He knew how tousled his hair was, could feel the red flush of blood against the skin of his cheeks, knew he was panting as if fazed. Yet there was Draco, statuesque and just as empty and unflawed. It felt like injustice, tasted like disgust, but he looked impossibly closed and…pure.

Sickening. 

"Get off me! You, you're- disgusting!" Harry exclaimed, but even he himself could identify the distressed note in his voice. He backed away, nearly tripping over himself to leave, and Malfoy only shrugged half-heartedly. "I wish…just-…shit Malfoy, give me back my invisibility cloak, and leave me the hell alone!"

He stomped off. Draco was left there looking distantly pleased, reminiscent of past years. Life- it was such a nice thing to feel, and for Draco, living meant hatred. 

It seemed resurrection wasn't terribly hard after all. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_Herbology__; _September 25, 1997___; about __2:30 PM___

Potter avoided him like the plague after the potions incident. It was oddly natural, seeing the old routine of cat and mouse fall into place, and Draco spent his days feeling awake again. The former hate found its way into his life in little ways; Draco was pleasantly aware of the angry, searching glances Harry shot at him as they passed each other in the hall, the muttered curses under his breath to Granger and Weasley every time the Slytherin spoke up in class. 

Of course, there was the new component to consider, tossed into the mix. The kiss lingered on his mind, that confrontation; Draco couldn't quite understand what had spurred him to do it, but he felt at ease with the matter. 

Harry however, did not. It became more obvious day to day that he felt awkward being anywhere near Draco, Quidditch games included. When Draco swung a wide arc past him, Harry had reared back as if struck, and then went shooting in the opposite direction. With Potter so unfocused, Draco had miraculously caught the Snitch.

Now in good favor with the Slytherin house, Draco never less kept himself isolated and occupied. Months had passed since the beginning of the term, and yet he still felt detached. Relationships of any sort repulsed him; romance was out of the question. His dating habits had been infrequent before, and limited to the Slytherin house, but they now dwindled to none. It didn't bother him in the slightest.

And yet…that _kiss. It puzzled him, as there was no proper reasoning behind it._

Hands buried up to his wrists in a large earthen pot, Draco thrust the bare roots of a plant into the soil. He had never liked Herbology much; the only point of it, really, was to learn about plants that could be used for potions' ingredients. He tolerated it because his grades depended on doing well in all areas, but never really enjoyed the grunt work involved. 

_What class did Potter have now?_  

He thought a lot about Potter lately. It didn't bother him. That was the way things had been before the fire. His thoughts always strayed to Harry if he didn't control them, considering plots, schemes, and revenge. 

The kiss. Draco decided firmly that it had been played out to bewilder the enemy. Confusion always brewed weakness- it was a standard rule of thumb in his father's house. 

Or what was left of it.

Never mind.

The kiss. So the confusion was there, certainly, sitting there and waiting for him to put it to his advantage. Draco knew well enough not to take it seriously, but of course, Harry in his naïve Gryffindor mindset would not. To Gryffindors, love was sacred, love and everything associated with the feeling. It had always perplexed Draco, how they made out the slightest physical contact to be some noble bond of pure emotion. 

The kiss meant nothing to Draco.

The kiss could mean everything to Harry, or at the very least put doubts into his befuddled mind. Doubts were certainly dangerous things in many cases, and Draco understood exactly how to manipulate the slippery things. 

With a grunt of satisfaction, Draco dusted off his hand and glove. He felt evil again. 

It felt so damn good. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_Outside the Locker Rooms; __September 25, 1997_; about __7 PM____

Their next encounter was carefully staged. The Gryffindor team's Quidditch practice came to a conclusion, and Draco cornered him, literally, just outside the locker room.

It wasn't hard, really; Harry was always the last out after showering. Draco had picked up the fact through angry ventures after games, spying that had bordered on stalking. He always felt murderous after losing, and it was those times that Harry Potter came his closest to being killed by him. 

Of course, Harry had never looked the type to take much time bathing. His dark hair was always mussed, with a dull shine that showed regular cleaning, but nothing special. The fact of the matter seemed to be that Harry Potter took long showers when he had the time, simply standing there absorbed in his thoughts. He was flushed when he left the building, and his hair dripped limply against the towel around his shoulders.

"Don't move, Potter, or you'll regret it." Harry froze, the long wand pointed at the hollow of his throat. 

"Sod off, Malfoy. You wouldn't," he growled stiffly, but he paled. 

"I would. Give me the coin, or else I'll let myself hurt you, Potter."

Harry laughed aloud, but stopped when the wand pushed against his skin. "You think I carry it around with me, do you? You're so conceited, Malfoy. I don't worry about it that much." 

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Go get it."

"What? You can't just _Accio the thing?"_

"You'd think I would have by now if I bloody could!" Draco snapped. "You can't use any sort of magic on them. My father enchanted them himself." 

Harry snorted. "You really are an idiot." Draco prodded at his throat again. 

"I wouldn't be insulting if I had a wand pointed at my neck, Potter." 

"You're always insulting." Harry seemed to be relaxing, while Draco felt his controlled demeanor slipping away. 

"Shut up, Potter, and listen." He pressed his wand harder against Harry's windpipe, and could feel the tense vibrations through his wand. Soon, Harry Potter would have difficulty breathing. Smiling darkly, Draco watched his green eyes grow wide and panicky. "Go to the dungeons tonight, 11. Five doors down from the Potions classroom, past the Runespoor statue with its heads missing, leave the galleon where I can see it. Maybe afterwards we can negotiate your…invisibility cloak, is it?" Harry swore, inhaled a strained breath. 

"You can't make me come."

"Can't I?" Draco drew a green satin ribbon from his pocket. He somehow tied it one-handed around Harry's index finger, much more quickly than it should have been able to tie. 

"A reminder ribbon," snarled Harry, gasping now. "How sweet." 

"_Lemiscus__ Admonitio. Infindo." The ribbon tightened so that it fit snugly around his finger, growing gradually tighter and tighter. The process was slow, but obvious. _

"That will let you know when it is time to go. Or if you don't go, you'll need Madam Pomfrey to sew your finger back on." Draco paused. "I heard she's an expert in the area; but then, you should know, Potter, having been there so often."

Harry said nothing. Instead, he attempted to pull the ribbon off- it wouldn't budge. "What the bloody hell is this, Malfoy?"

"You need a bit of urging." 

"So you're going to squish my finger a little. What's to say I don't get a Severing Charm or a pair of scissors?"

Tilting his head, Draco smiled. Harry wanted to curse him and walk away. He was aware of how wrong they must look, standing near enough together that their robes seemed to tangle. Harry could faintly feel Draco's body heat. "I thought of that already, Potter. Don't underestimate me when it comes to planning." 

Harry continued to work at the bow. "You're not worth underestimating," he retorted. "I could show the entire school your pathetic ruin, and it wouldn't matter if you cut off the circulation of my finger." 

His eyes darkened slightly and his smile faded. "Like you could, Potter. I have your cloak, if you've forgotten." Harry sent him a deadly glare. "I've got this little game of ours sorted. Are you listening?" He eyed Harry, who looked away after a few moments' staring contest. "I've got this under control, and I won't walk away until I've finally beaten you."

"You've got no life, Malfoy."

"We already agreed on that, haven't we?" Draco glanced at the irritated red mark on the skin of Harry's throat. "All I've got to do now is ruin yours."


	6. Chapter 6: Sunlit

**Chapter 6: Sunlit**

_Near the Kitchens; __September 25, 1997__; about __9 PM___

Hand hidden in his pocket, Harry spent the next three hours finding any means of distraction. Without it, thoughts strayed and he was terribly aware of the tight ribbon on his finger and the lingering feeling of Draco Malfoy on his lips. Neither sensation would go away, and they hung about ominously if he did not concentrate on something else.

Seven to Eight o'clock was spent on schoolwork, various bits of essays and star charts, and ignoring Draco Malfoy.

Eight to Eight-Thirty was spent playing wizards' chess with Ron, with his usual spectacular failure, and ignoring Draco Malfoy.

Eight-Thirty to Eight-Forty was spent fiddling with anything he could get his hand on and ignoring that bloody bastard Draco Malfoy.

It was truly, truly maddening. 

The nothingness of it all began to press in on him. In a fit of paranoia, he thundered out of the Gryffindor common room with the galleon in his pocket to ferret out that bloody bastard of a prat, Draco Malfoy.

Of course, finding him was one of those irritating things that are, inevitably, easier said than done. Harry found himself wandering the corridors almost aimlessly, keeping to the shadows and feeling rather conspicuous without his invisibility cloak. Poking around a stairwell that led to the kitchens, he spotted a ghost floating by and nearly choked in panic. As it was, he managed to hide most of himself behind a suit of armor.

He panicked again as the head tumbled off its broad metal shoulders. The helmet, clattering to the floor, sent a jolting clang to ricochet through the school. Before the feeling of dread took too much of a hold on him, the tapestry on which he had been leaning on shifted. A large, even hole opened up through the center, tangled with strings like a florescent spider's web and just large enough that he promptly fell through. It quickly closed again with the sharp hissing of threads flying back together. 

Harry found himself on a balcony overlooking the lake. The skies above were delightfully clear, with the stars fixed needlepoints puncturing the darkness, and the wall behind him was decidedly solid for something that had just been a tapestry. It took very little intelligence for him to realize there was no way down without a broom. 

He was trapped. It took a few moments to sink in, and when it did, he was horrified. There was nothing to do. Absolutely, positively nothing.

And he became acutely aware of the ribbon and Draco Malfoy's lips. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

"Why the hell," Draco said to himself, "didn't I steal this thing sooner?"

It was truly charming, waltzing about the corridors without the least care of being spotted. He did a pleased twirl, and the cloak whirled up above his ankles before settling itself back down. The whole experience of it all was impossibly freeing.

"Damn, Potter, you've made me jealous."

He raced lightly across Hogwarts' lawns. The chill awoke him, made him see everything he needed clear in his mind. It was revitalizing, and as he soared along, he felt sorely in his element. There was nothing like the cold to bring him back to what needed his concentration.

And yet, freedom distracted him. He'd settled into the dispassion he had kept himself in since the fire, only to find himself caught in a glorious diversion. Running sent him to the brink of emotion, the adrenaline imitating some sort of magnificent high that was akin to happiness itself. The closest he could get. 

Poor Potter would never get his cloak back. 

He ran and ran until he felt that familiar hitch in his chest, and then settled on panting out his contentment at a brisk walk. The castle seemed ominous from out here, like a giant beast waiting in the silences to swallow him back in. He had never had the opportunity so see it at large, and it was much more expansive than he felt walking down its halls. 

It had more windows and terraces, as well. Few were lit at this hour, instead blending peaceably into the dark background, but those that were seemed very high up or lower down on the walls. 

After awhile, Draco deemed it safe and spread the cloak on the grass to rest a bit. There were no lights on this part of the castle, as there were few rooms near the kitchens. Some windows seemed grayer than others, signs of fires burning dimly or farther within the belly of the beast. He shuddered, lying on his side with the cold silken fabric of the invisibility cloak pressed up against the skin of his neck, face, hands, back, and looked away. His thoughts strayed to those of fire-lit windows. 

The first scream froze him, the second stilled his breath. They were deliberately soft, muffled as if stuffed with cloth, but all too familiar. 

Fire.

Father, his hair flaming like strands of oiled rope, screaming his agony as he burned himself to dust. Dust that stirred in ever-restless patterns across Malfoy land, tainting it, soiling a reputation that had already been secretly bloodied.

_I killed him. _

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The darkness revealed a pair of skeletons. Harry discovered them soon on and shuffled backwards frantically, his back pressed against the adamant stone. Their long white limbs were tangled like those of lovers, but a slim dagger was coiled in a pair of bony fingers, and its tip balanced on a rib of the other. When Harry peered closer in morbid curiosity, there was a nick in the bone, and a pale brown undertone like that of faded blood.

They only distracted him for a little while. Sitting there among the dead was not as frightening as it seemed at first, and the pressure of the ribbon became firmer within his mind. Quickly, his thoughts turned to other things, anything really. Quidditch and schoolwork and how he hated that bloody Malfoy for putting him through this. How the weather was nice, and how he ought to send Sirius a letter tomorrow morning (disregarding the fact that he might still be stuck here). 

Draco.

No, not Draco. _Dear Sirius, I suppose I haven't written to you in awhile- sorry-_

The sound of silence filled with soft kisses and the rustle of hair and clothing and meeting flesh. _How've_ you been? It's been busy, hasn't it, working for Dumbledore. Can't wait until this bloody war is over; I wish you'd let me into it. Don't you think I could handle him? I've had worse.__

The tightening of a string, the touch of hands, of need. _Fudge is a weak old bastard anyway. We should have figured out ages ago that he was in the league with Voldemort._

Why?

The question came suddenly, breaking through his battered train of thought. There was no logic behind that kiss. There was no back-up emotion- Draco had even been tame in his insults lately, not to mention in any other feeling. 

_He's__ trying to confuse you, Harry, he thought to himself, and glanced at the skeletal lovers. __He's__ trying to make you pity him, make you think that there's a reason you should give in. Don't fall for it, idiot. The same thoughts he'd drilled into himself a thousand times before._

As the ideas continued to solidify, Harry let himself relax. _That kiss- not even a kiss, that plot- was nothing, _he added as if in postscript. It was worth less than a light snow, melting just the morning after, as if it had never existed. 

That was when a harsh retaliation began, almost seeming to have been triggered at the very thought. Abruptly, the ribbon grew very tight, and then began to become thinner and thinner, until it was like a steel hair and sharp enough to slice. It hurt somehow much more than it should have, made more intense by magic or the emptiness around him. Harry cried out as it began to work into his flesh, then quickly bit the hem of his robe to keep from making more noise. 

He clamped his eyes shut against the pain, which was constant and cruelly biting now. He felt it cut through skin before nipping at muscle. It would only be a matter of time before the finger came off. A ring of blood formed around it, following the curves of his hand to drip to the floor. So this was Malfoy's sort of torture.

_I suppose you know best, after all, being the godfather here. Good luck; I don't care what Voldemort does. Don't give in.  _

_Sincerely,_

_Harry_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Draco was racing now, feeling the stones echo his pace rather than the grass mute it. Towards the screams, he ran on and on, recognizing the hitch growing in chest but ignoring it. He raced on, racing himself to stupidity to end the horror, end the pain, end the torture. This was wrong- he hadn't meant for it to become like this- 

He had forgotten, lost himself in the moment. He hadn't remembered what pain felt like, what screams felt like, even when it came to your enemies. 

They grew louder, perhaps amplified by his mind, perhaps not. He followed them, always waiting for the cries to grow long and slurred and desperate. 

_No!_ The cloak whipped like an emblem behind him. _I didn't know, Potter, I forgot, forgive me-_

Somehow, he had forgotten torture. _Its part of your damn fault too, Potter. You can't let my hate for you get out of hand, don't you remember? He thought it almost whimsically, with a pained smile. _

He'd forgotten what the screams sounded like. Perhaps it hadn't occurred to him that, even after all his efforts, that Harry could be injured, Harry could be tainted and in anyway impure. He didn't realize that Harry could feel, and thus know pain.

_I wouldn't wish that on anyone. No, not even myself. _

He found the source soon enough, the tapestry seemingly vibrating with the screams now. He muttered a Severing Spell, watched as the threads ripped open in a long slash, felt the emptiness of a broken spell. He dived through with no regrets, tossing aside the invisibility cloak.

For a second Potter looked at him as if seeing a savior. It was dazzling. His eyes were ringed with a certain bloodshot hope that Draco had never seen there before.

As all things do, it passed; that familiar hatred darkened the eyes Draco knew so well. It didn't matter. Potter was lying curled up on the floor, his sleeve clenched between his teeth, sweating. The blood had run from his fingertips to the floor, and was staining the side of his face. With the least hesitation he could allow, Draco fell upon him and shouted the counter-spell almost hysterically.

Silence. 

Their limbs had somehow become tangled, their faces close enough to caress. Draco could feel Harry's breath thaw his cold lips and his own meet and mingle with it. 

Silence.

"Idiot," he rasped, panting, not wanting to know what Harry would respond. It would kill him to know.

Silence.

They say a kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become unneeded. When it finally came, Draco meant only to mute him. Or perhaps he hadn't meant to at all; it felt like an accident, felt light to his lips like a brushstroke, and he could only stop staring when the sounds of footsteps came from the outside corridor. The pace quickened at the sight of the torn tapestry.

For a moment he was reluctant to break away, afraid that something would shatter. He knew now that Potter was human and felt human pain, and it made him seem suddenly delicate. It wasn't right.

Things were meant to stay the way they always had between them. Their hatred was what kept him waking at sunrise, kept him breathing as the day wore on. 

Then why did it feel so good for this to change?

Diving away, he pulled himself underneath the invisibility cloak, trying to still his breaths before they revealed him, or perhaps before things became too clear. Harry was left bewildered.

Professor Dumbledore was worried in a pleasantly calm way as he moved through the tapestry. He glanced once at the skeletons, only once, and did not look at them after. With a series of simple healing spells, he healed Harry's wound, speaking gently only when words seemed fit. 

"Would you like to tell me what happened here, Harry?" If he sensed Draco hiding there, beneath the cloak, he made no inquiries about it. 

"Nothing, sir." His shaken voice fooled no one. 

The headmaster's eyes sparkled.

"I made a wrong turn, sir, going to the kitchens, and fell through. It was an accident." It didn't explain the wound.

Draco could concentrate on nothing but his breathing, made deliberately long and silent.

"Ah, yes. Going for a midnight snack, I suppose; I would reprimand you, but I was doing just the same myself." Pause. "Were you venturing off alone?"

Harry's gaze shot treacherously towards the invisibility cloak, and the thief trembling beneath it. 

_Go on, Potter, _he thought, _make this last move. I get expelled from this school for magically assaulting another student, and that'll be the end of it, right? You'll win, and it'll be as if this rivalry never happened. You win, Potter, it would take an idiot not to see it. You've won once and for all. _

Harry stared and stared. _Go on, Potter. _

_Strike this final blow; that's how it works, that's how it bloody works. I thought you played by the rules._

"No one, Professor. I came alone. There was no one with me."

The headmaster smiled, and soon his back was retreating through the tapestry. "I thought as such, Harry. It is late- if your appetite for breaking rules is sated, I suggest you get on back to bed now."

Harry was quick to follow. While the headmaster continued towards the kitchen, Harry turned the other way for the Gryffindor dormitories. "I will. Goodnight, sir."

"Goodnight Harry. For future reference, your invisibility cloak might be useful when out at night."

"I'll keep that in mind, sir. Thank you"

Their footsteps fell in opposite directions. When he could no longer hear them, Draco stood and left the balcony. Even in his mind it was silent. Making his long way to the Slytherin dormitories, he clasped the cloak around him and let his thoughts sleep as he walked. 

A slim white dagger was balanced carefully in his hands.


	7. Chapter 7: Calm before the Storm

**Chapter 7: Calm before the Storm**

_On the lawns by the lake; __November 10, 1997_; about __2:30 PM____

Winter began with a bang of heavy snowfall and a bout of silence. Although the snow was not unexpected, the hush itself was of epic proportions; Harry avoided Draco, and Draco avoided Harry, both to an obsessive level. They both seemed set out to reach a common goal of not having the least bit of contact, and double Potions was pleasantly subdued in the process. 

If any of Draco's crowd seemed surprised, they didn't say so. Ron and Hermione, however, had been enormously delighted, though all the more suspicious at Draco's odd behavior. Either way, everyone seemed to agree that the snow was much needed, and had gotten here just in time. 

This particular Saturday, the Gryffindors had begun one of their traditional snow-battles out by the lake. Harry had been ambushed earlier on that afternoon on his way to the library, and he was glad to give up History homework for a bit of distraction. 

It was an all out massacre, with no teams and a great deal of confusion. There also being no allies or common enemies, it seemed as if no one was off-limits, and so the snow flew all the more rapidly. There was a great deal of good-natured squealing, screaming, running, and ducking among all. 

Harry felt wonderfully carefree. As he got a snowball in the back of the head, he turned around, laughing, and began to throw one right back.

The offender was Draco Malfoy. Harry stopped, feeling suddenly angry at a gesture that would have been innocent coming from anyone else. Malfoy made even the snow impure.

It was odd how he looked so natural in the winter wonderland. Compared to the blindingly white snow all around, his cheeks seemed almost flushed, and he appeared not to be the least bit chilled. He was staring mutely, smiling a reminiscent sort of smile with his hands into his pockets. A thoughtful gesture. 

Harry watched as he began to walk away, his form blurred in the steady fall of flurries. The snowflakes were delightfully thick, big enough to linger on his eyelashes, but the heavy flakes seemed camouflaged where they passed Draco's path. It began to become difficult to distinguish the sharp outlines of his form. 

Remembering something he had been considering for some time now, Harry jogged toward him. Just before they entered the castle, Harry managed to catch his arm in mid-arc. 

Draco turned to look at him, the curving movement of his head judged carefully. "What do you want, Potter?"

It was all about control. Harry kept his voice low as he spoke, casting suspicious glances at those who passed. "We need to talk. I'd like to get things sorted out."

Eying him, Draco smiled wanly, hints of an old smirk on his lips. "I bribed you, nearly took off your finger, could have gotten you in trouble with the Headmaster- and you would have been, if he didn't favor you so much. Have I got the slightest reason to trust you?"

 "I haven't got any reason to feel safe with you, either. At least you have the cloak to your advantage- which I don't have." He breathed. "Let's make a deal." 

Draco considered. "Fine. Don't expect too much, Potter." 

Harry shrugged, shifting some of the snow from his shoulders. "If you say so. What time?"

Draco looked amused, his eyebrow crooked slightly upward in suggestion of a stronger disdain. "I would have thought you had it planned. How does eleven sound, out on the balcony? It does hold so many fond memories."

"Eleven…that's fine. Remember to be there?"

"Possibly."

Draco pulled the door open and disappeared into the castle. Harry turned to continue the snowball fight, only to see the Gryffindors mostly silent, their eyes turned to regard him in question. The snow swirling about them served only to make them more regal and evaluating, standing tall while it turned about them. The judges of his life.

Harry knelt down slowly, crouched on his toes, and gathered a snowball. He threw it, hitting Seamus squarely in the head.

The raucous, gleeful noises soon resumed, but for Harry could still feel their question in the air, mingling with the winter. These were his friends, all around- they were too sure of him to accuse anything, but he knew the doubt that forced their smiles.

They could not accuse sin of The Boy Who Lived, but they could think it, and their snowballs felt poisonous falling to pieces against him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

_The Balcony; __November 10, 1997__; Around __11 PM___

The scene of the crime had been sterilized since that distant evening. The tapestry was mended, and as Harry removed the helmet and set it carefully on the ground, he was worried that it would no longer open for him. It did, however, and he passed through the hole expecting to be greeted by skeletons and Draco Malfoy.

Neither party was there. The skeletons had obviously been removed, perhaps to be properly buried, and Draco had not yet made his appearance. There was always the possibility that he wasn't coming; Harry decided to ignore that prospect. 

The sound of ripping fabric sounded Draco's entrance. A short dagger seemed to slice easily through the solid stone behind him; Harry had been too delirious the last time to notice anything odd about it. As the wall parted and allowed him entrance, the stonework rippled like a curtain. 

"You couldn't just come in the normal way?" Harry asked dryly. 

Draco shrugged, tucking the knife into a rough leather sheath tied beside his money pouch. "You never told me how."

"_Lumos_._" The area lit up dimly. Harry settled his wand so that the tip protruded from his pocket. "Dumbledore will get suspicious- I doubt anyone else knows about this place. I don't care what you say; if I go out of my way to break rules, he can't ignore it."_

"Whatever, Potter. Worry about it if you want; it's your problem, after all."

Harry felt a familiar clench in his throat. "Fine. Let's just get this done, shall we?" 

Shrug. "Be my guest."

Awkwardly, Harry began. "All right. I've been…thinking, ever since that-,"

"What?"

"That incident."

"You couldn't come up with a better word?" Draco crossed his arms comfortably, shifting his weight to his left leg. It gave him an unruffled appearance, and made Harry feel as if he was less in control of this scenario that he had hoped to be.

He sighed. "I did try. Couldn't come up with anything better. Can we move on?" Draco nodded enigmatically.

"Ever since that incident, I've been thinking we should call a truce. You give me back my cloak, and I'll give you your precious Portkey." 

Draco looked mockingly intrigued, head tilted slightly forward in a purposeful manner. "Hmm."

"We both get what we want. It's called a compromise, if you've forgotten."

"Hmm." _Merlin, he's being difficult._

"So what do you think?" said Harry impatiently. 

"Hmm." 

"Really, Malfoy, is it _that _difficult?" _Calm down,_ Harry told himself. _You're__ letting him get to you. That's exactly what he wants. _

"No, not particularly. I've decided to refuse your, ahem, _generous offer_, but I'm trying to find the right insult to go along with it."

"What?!" Didn't he want the damn thing back? Harry thought of the galleon, hidden away in the drawer of his bedside table beneath several books. "But-,"

"No, Potter. _No, for lack of a better word."_

"But- why? Why the hell not- I mean, this is your Portkey, you nearly murdered me for it- remember? For bloody hell, Malfoy, _why not?!_"

Draco smiled, his lips curved pityingly upwards. "This deal of yours favors you too much. I'm resourceful. It'll only be a matter of time before I can wheedle the bloody thing out of you."

"But it'd be much simpler just trading! You return my cloak-,"

"Exactly. Can't be willingly returning something to you, now, can I?"

"But- Malfoy-,"

"You can screw your offer. I don't need your help to get anything back, _Potter. _ Especially anything of mine." The smile was gone, and however teasing it had been before, Harry would have preferred it now to this darker expression. Mocking in every sense of the word, Draco began to walk away. 

Harry was fuming. Somehow he held back for a second, he wasn't sure how he managed it, and somehow he noticed the dagger hilt gleaming temptingly. He dove for it, seized it and sliced through the flimsy scabbard and a flash of Malfoy's bared flesh in the process. 

Taken unaware, Draco hissed at the sudden pain and halted in his tracks, stumbling forward. By the time his cheek hit the ground, Harry had fallen upon him, the tip of the dagger catching a dragon-hide glove. 

The knifepoint pinned only a fingertip, but it was enough to pull away the glove. Draco seemed not to notice, flailing about with Harry crouched over him. Expecting to see mutilation, it came as a shock to see the same flawless pattern of that pale flesh beneath it all. 

"You've sunken down to Weasley's level, Potter! Get off- get off of me, Potter, get that bloody knife away, it's mine-,"

"Not until you've returned what belongs to me." Harry dislodged the glove, drawing the knife towards that pale, trembling throat. "Not until you give me what rightfully belongs to me." 

"You think I'd give you a peaceful surrender?"

"You seem to think I'd accept it. But no, Malfoy- I want to see you screaming to your death."

"Liar. What about that image you have to protect, _hero_?" The steel at his neck was colder than any emptiness he'd ever felt. The touch of death. It seemed odd that they had held each other to it so often in the past weeks. 

"I would do it," said Harry softly after the silence faded away. 

"You're in denial, Potter." The blade slid like a paper cut, stinging in brief, bitter pain as if to convince him otherwise. _ "You wouldn't. You're Dumbledore's boy, savior of the wizarding world. You wouldn't kill me, defenseless." He paused, added darkly, "You can't kill at all." _

"You've never been more wrong," he growled. "I've killed before, Malfoy, more than you can imagine." 

"I'm never wrong." It stung as it left his throat. 

"It's worse than any hex you've ever sent." His voice was rising slightly now, getting to a desperate high. "I've _killed; I've shouted the killing curse and saw that same green light that murdered my parents, and thought of revenge each time. Murder, Malfoy, I've murdered!"_

"_Liar._"

"Damn you, Malfoy- saying 'mudblood' is nothing next to this! I'm bloodier than you, for once, I've killed them, I've killed them- ask Ron, he knows, he could tell you, anyone could tell you-,"

"Ask him what _he did,_" growled Draco suddenly. "Ask him what he did, the bastard."

"Ron is worth more than you any day." 

"Being valued more than me in a Gryffindor's terms is nothing to brag about. Even if it were true, it doesn't make him perfect, whatever you seem to believe." He was no longer trembling. "You trust your friends too much." 

"What did he do then?" Harry jeered, "What did he do to offend that frail ego of yours, Malfoy?"

"You left it there," shot Draco, his profile sharp against the stone. "You left it out- you didn't think he could resist curiosity, did you?"

"He took-," _The galleon._ It was unspoken between them, hovering on the brink of speech, and Harry could not seem to roll it off his tongue. Ron had seen it, Ron who was so bitter, could not contain whatever he felt- he had seen it, and-

_-no.___

"Yes," said Draco. "The galleon."

"You're wrong," Harry objected, the knife flashing at the sky between his fingertips. "Decent people don't think the way you do." A dread was sinking into his stomach.

"You thought I wouldn't find out?" In the darkness, his eyes were black, not silver. "You thought I could ignore all those whispers, pointed fingers?"

"There was nothing of the sort."

"That laughing? You somehow got it into your head that passing Gryffindors laughing openly in my face could be passed off as coincidence, Potter?" he sneered, almost hysterical, though Harry could not think how anyone other than he could pull it off.

"He wouldn't do it! Ron is-,"

"You don't bloody know who he is, Potter! Because you only see what you tell yourself to see, all these years. He isn't that precious little Weasley that you thought you knew!" He had waited for this moment.

_"You're wrong!" _Harry was shouting now, the roars paining his ears, but he ignored them, not wanting to hear it, wanting all this treachery to turn out false. _"You're bloody wrong, Malfoy, shut up, shut up-,"_

"-Too innocent to see the truth about people-,"

_"Damn you Malfoy!"_

"-It's been there all along-,"

"_Shut up!!_ Damn you, _shut up before I tear out your throat-,"_

"Nobody's what they pretend to be, not even your Weasley-,"

_"No!-,"_

"-Everyone has their demons. There is no such thing as purity. There is no such thing as perfection-"   

"_Crucio!_" Malfoy's whispers turned into screams, more terrible than any screams of inflicted pain than Harry had ever heard. Like calling to death itself, because Draco was adding his own cries to those torn out of his chest. Pain of the soul. 

Harry himself could only remember those deadly, deadly whispers, which had pained him more than any agony.

Minutes, hours, seconds later Draco came out of his pain laughing and sobbing all at once. "There-," he said, gasping, moving slowly as if every nerve was severed. "There's that demon of yours, Potter." He glanced up at him appraisingly. "You're more Slytherin than I thought." 

Wordlessly, Harry kicked him, moving on impulse and instinct and that Slytherin that Draco said was buried so deep within. He stood there, looking terrible and imperious, and yet Draco shouted after him as if he were already meters away. 

"I knew you all along, Potter. That demon was in there, I knew it was. It took time, Potter, but I've lured it out and its _finally here_. All those years. After all those years, the truth comes out. I finally know what you really are, Potter." 

Harry simmered. "You will _never know me, Malfoy."_

"You will never know the rest of us. Ask your Weasley. He'll tell you."

He left, feeling dirty throughout his body. As he walked, he wondered, cursing himself and trying to steer away those words. 

_Demon.___

_You will never know the rest of us._

Odd, how it applied. He walked past empty classrooms as if they shuddered in his wake, feeling like some manic instinct he had been withholding all these years had broken loose, and he was not truly righteous at all. Slaughterer. Cold-blooded player of torment. They sounded discordant next his usual titles, and the immense guilt found refuge in his dirty heart. 

He had never been what it had seemed. To anyone, or himself. It burned him. 

Could he really play the villain?

Draco laughed in the distance. 


	8. Chapter 8: Downpour

**Chapter 8: Downpour**

_The Gryffindor Common Room; __November 10, 1997_; around __12 PM____

The world could have been dead at this hour and Hermione would never know. It was empty in the common room, the fires still burning as cheerfully as ever, but she could not hold herself to the homework spread before her as she did all other nights. 

Harry had left earlier that evening, maybe only an hour ago. He hadn't told either of his closest friends, but he also hadn't seen Hermione sitting quietly by the fire. He tended not to see anything when he was distracted. What hurt most of all was that he hadn't seemed to see them at all these few weeks, paid little attention at any given time. 

If it was a girl, Hermione would have understood. Some secretive love affair- who couldn't empathize with him for wanting that? But Harry wasn't sneaking out to meet some pretty Hufflepuff in the Astronomy Tower, because he wasn't risking himself for love at all, but business. 

A guilty conscience stirred amid the worries in her mind. She tried to reassure herself that she had done it for Harry's sake, that it hadn't been her fault when things had turned bad. It had been an innocent act from the start. She had been worried, for God's sakes! She was and had been worried, that and her curiosity had gotten the best of her. There had never meant to be any harm…but, how to tell Harry?

There was the sound of a portrait swinging opened and then closed. Harry. "Hermione?" He seemed startled for a moment, and she closed her eyes. "Hermione, - is Ron awake as well? I need to talk to him."

She stood up suddenly. "Why?" There was no mistaking the anxiety in her voice. He looked at her queerly.

"I…want to ask him about something."

"I know what you want to ask, Harry. It wasn't Ron's fault." 

He smiled, as if trying to smooth over a misunderstanding. The way he might look at a small child. "I don't think you know, Hermione. I'm not quite sure if I know myself."

"I do know." Looking away, her voice shaking. "It was my fault from the beginning"

As he walked over towards her, curled there in an armchair, Hermione could see that he still did not believe her. "No, Hermione, really-,"

"I stole the coin, all right?! I snuck into the boy's dormitories and rummaged through your drawer."

Harry's expression was frozen in that condescending smile. "You…-,"

"I didn't mean to!" Her voice was shrill. "I was worried about you, Harry, you'd been acting so strangely! I didn't know what else I could do- I thought something had happened to you, going through that Portkey, you had seen You-Know-Who or something!"

"You took it? But, Hermione…" _you would never do that._

"Why didn't you tell us? We're not bad people, Harry, we can understand if you felt sympathetic for Malfoy-,"

"I didn't feel any sympathy," said Harry suddenly, loudly. "I hate him." _How can you even suggest that? I thought I knew you. _

She glanced at him, watching as his eyes turned to the flames. He was wearing some sort of glove, and he gripped it with terrible tension as if trying to wrest some emotion from it. 

A single sigh. "Oh Harry! The truth is that I took the coin- I was worried- and I went there, myself, and came back…I must have left it out somewhere, and Ron-," _No, not Ron too. Harry felt his head spinning. _

"I found it." Ron entered, pyjamas as short as always. Harry was struck by the thought that Ron…Ron and Hermione had never changed. He had simply never seen the truth. "I thought it was ordinary galleon at first- you can't blame me for wanting to pick it up- but then I went there."

"You both saw it." His voice was hollow, waiting to be filled with dreaded possibility. 

"The Gryffindor house saw it," said Ron. "And I showed them." His voice asked for no sympathy. For Harry, it translated as uncaring. 

"So…everyone- they've all seen it now," repeated Harry quietly. 

"Everyone that matters. I would've thought you could understand, Harry, you know what he's done to us over these years."

"I understand," Harry replied stoically, still staring into the fire as if imagining himself pitching into it. "Why you would do it. He's boasted, played the general prat for all this time, and now, finally, you have more than what he has. It's right to want to shove it all back at him."

_I would have done it. _

_Demon.___

"It's only human, Harry," said Hermione, almost pleadingly. "It's natural to want to-," _Not the Hermione I knew. Not The Boy Who Lived. _

"It isn't natural for me," Harry interrupted, turning his gaze abruptly. They could still see the fire reflecting in his glasses. 

"Shut up, Harry," Ron said brusquely. "You might be a hero, but you're no saint, remember? You break rules left and right, but in the end, it's always out of good intentions. Not everything you do has to be done the right way."

Harry sank down to sit cross-legged by the fire. "But what if I don't always have good intentions?" His voice was hoarse and quiet, the question meant mostly for himself. 

Standing above him, Ron looked resolved. "Then you're just like the rest of us."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They left soon after, deciding to discuss their next plan of action in the morning. There was a soft rustle; Draco appeared near the doorway, leaving the invisibility cloak in a shining puddle about his feet. After a moment's thought, he picked it up and draped it across himself again, then crept soundlessly towards the curving stairs. 

The sounds of light (and not so light) snoring permeated the air, lending the room a comfortably drowsy feel. In the dark, there was little to see outside the lumps curled up in their beds; Draco found himself wishing he had a camera with him before turning to his task. 

It was easy to find Harry's bed, easier still to find Harry's bedside table with a pair of round-framed glasses perched atop it. Carefully, Draco worked open the drawer, removing the books and stacking them methodically behind him on the floor. 

And there was that pouch. Drawing it out of the drawer by the string, he probed through the fabric and felt the outline of the galleon there. Smiling in triumph, he opened the bag to feel it in his hand when-

He realized that he wasn't wearing his glove.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Manor in winter had always been a dazzling sight, snowcaps jauntily topping the roof and icicles rimming the edge like a tremendous crystal chandelier. Draco came home during holidays if only to see the house in its pretty winter coat, as he did all other years. Even as the years had passed and its halls were more increasingly filled with screams, he didn't mind. To him the house seemed ever innocent, though the events within in torture chambers were not. 

It seemed sad that only a few swaying beams could bear the snow. In a moment, he forgot his accidental arrival. He went to stroke one, feeling the cold familiar wood press against his cheek. Home. He wanted to cry out in relief, but held in his voice and stood there silently, leaning up against what was left of his past. There were many things he wanted and could never have.

The midnight sky was an unsympathetic blue-grey. Voldemort stepped out of it, across the horizon, moments later. 

Drawing the invisibility cloak closer about it, Draco waited, hating the fear that grew up inside of him. The Dark Lord, apparently, was not here for reminiscence or guilt, of which he had little tolerance for. He was here for Draco. 

The invisibility cloak came aside with ease, tossed among the charcoal with little thought 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry Potter woke up suddenly to see the silver accents on his Transfiguration textbook catching the moon from the floor and his drawer emptied of its contents. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Dark Lord peered at his arm, no longer covered by dragon hide. "A renegade Death Eater should not be so eager to show the mark of his master." 

Draco looked towards him, wrists facing towards the sky as if revealing the Dark Mark in atonement. "It - - it was taken from me. By Harry Potter."

"Recently, I should hope. Tell me, young Malfoy, why you saw it fit to ignore my call for months, when it was clear you were needed to fill your father's position."

"I felt unworthy." Draco said unwaveringly. 

"You should." His eyes were conspicuous in the darkness, red against nocturnal blue and grey. "Your father was a great man. Complying."

"Am I like him?" Here was the man Lucius knew best, his master and the master of his son. Draco had been born to revere him with a trust known only to the welts on a slave's back and the whip that created them. The respect and trust made only from expectation, the knowledge that the commanding blow would always fall. 

"Only in appearance," came the voice of judgment, sounding of snakes. "You have only his potential, none of his fidelity. But come." The Dark Lord stepped towards him. "I came here tonight only because I wished to show you something. Where is the Portkey?"

Draco proffered it out on his flat palm, where it had not moved since he arrived. "I was in the Gryffindor common room."

"No matter. You have an invisibility cloak, I can see."

"Potter's."

"All the better, young Malfoy. With it we can kill that boy and complete my other task all at once."

Draco's head turned sharply towards him, and then away, fingers suddenly closed around the coin. "No. Leave him to me-…master."

"You say you have a quarrel with him? It is my right more than yours, Malfoy, to kill Harry Potter." However, his words were more curious than angry. "He brought me to my ruin, and yet Draco believes that he may be more deserving of the final blow."

Draco bowed his head. 

"Very well. He shall not die tonight- come, we have much to see. You waste too much of my time. It is not like the days when I wooed your father to my cause. Your conviction must be found more quickly." 

Together, they took the coin. As they arrived, Hogwarts gave a shudder in her stony roots, and its children slept on fitfully. 

Voldemort had returned.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry faked an innocent sleep while the man from his nightmares appeared. He couldn't see Voldemort, but he felt that pain pulsing through his scar, could almost smell the stench of not-quite-living on the air. It was clear; Voldemort had returned to finally kill him, and there was little Harry could do but pray and lie in a false slumber. 

There was that touch on his forehead, the cold burning of snake flesh. There were hissed words in the darkness, and words hushed in reply. Traitor Malfoy and his master, come to triumph together in The Boy Who Lived 's death. Sleeping on with his eyelids clamped tightly shut, he waited, feeling indignant that this was the end after all. 

Death. That cold-fingered hand stroking his cheek. 

And then it walked away. Harry forgot and opened his eyes in surprise at their retreating footfalls, then closed them again in remembrance. 

He rose from his bed, feeling momentous as he took up his wand and dagger to creep behind them. He had decided long ago after that incident that the only way he could kill Voldemort this time would be to strike from behind. There seemed no other way while those slanted eyes were watching, though it had seemed unlikely at the time that such a chance would present itself. 

It was here. He put on the invisibility cloak they had left behind so carelessly. 

For once, Harry Potter would be the first to strike. This was no murder in defense, but there was no other choice and Harry felt a sense of duty rising. This- this was revenge, what he had lived for. To kill. To kill the king of murderers. 

_Demon._

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

"No," hissed Draco suddenly. "You said-,"

Voldemort, alien in the gentle nature of the dormitories, had brushed that scar as if in suspicion. To Draco, it felt as the action was incriminating, disturbing that underlying purity-but he could not say so. The long-fingered hand traced its way down to his cheek. 

"Do not worry, young Malfoy. He is yours."

They left soon after, Draco finding a sense of resentment. Master and mastered found their way about the darkness as if by chance. It was difficult to believe that Voldemort knew where he was going, but Draco obeyed and held his tongue. 

He found himself facing the tapestry, found himself facing the memory of those nights before. Voldemort removed the helmet and handed it to Draco, who placed it warily at his feet. The gap opened. They passed through it, Draco looking back and Voldemort downward, at the light snow powdering the regular tiles. 

A hissed word in Slytherin's snake tongue, and a tile popped loose so that the Dark Lord could part the floor and gain entrance. There was a flight of stairs, dust lingering on every step, and sense of ancient forbiddance.  

Down, down, down, the stair long and narrow, preservation a smell heavy on the air. The long way felt pivotal somewhere in his mind, and then-

The torches flared at their arrival, tall flames lighting up to the ceiling arched high above them. Long pillars supported either side, stretching at least seven meters to support the ceiling. They were ominously similar to the columns that had held up his own home, as if they were the models by which the Manor was built. 

The skeletons caught his eyes within the next glance. Rows upon rows of bare white bones, larger and then smaller, made more dramatic in the flickering torchlight. They quivered slightly with some uncertain magic, as if still living. Animal bones, like a museum of those long dead. They were arranged on low pedestals with no glass to protect them, and positioned so naturally as to seem as if they had died this way, frozen in mid-stance until flesh rotted away. 

Voldemort pressed those thin lips together, mocking a smile. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry followed them silently, hand pressed against the walls as he descended the long stairway just behind them. He could only do so much to stifle his gasps of pain; several times freezing at Voldemort's pauses on the steps, as if smelling for his shadow, only to continue on. 

The Dark Lord was aware of him. Where, then, was the killing curse? When they entered the museum-room, Harry gaped from the shadows, waiting, wand in his left hand and dagger in his right. 

He could surely kill Draco using a spell, but the Dark Lord would most likely have up protective charms of some sort. When Harry had encountered him, last year, the killing curse had failed against him. Voldemort and his Death Eaters had vanished before help came to drag away the Muggle corpses. 

He had seen their glassy eyes as the curse rebounded, seemingly made stronger after being reflected. It had killed several innocents at once, in one great flash of light, and Voldemort had thanked him as Harry shook, seemingly in guilt and anger, but actually horrified at the sense of power it gave him to have murdered so easily. 

It had been an accident. It had been an accident and he knew it, but he knew that the ghosts could rise from his wand as easily as they had from the wand of his enemy. 

No. He would have to use the knife. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Draco watched as his master surveyed the area, eyes sliding over the bones and spellbooks piled on the long worktables that ran the length of the room. There were at least twenty specimens or so, arranged in neat rows with plaques on each platform. He walked down each row but stopped before a specific pair. 

The lovers, the skeletons Draco had seen outside on the balcony that first time, that one time. Their same tangled embrace had not changed, but the knife was missing. Draco had seen it in Harry's drawer. 

A cold hand on his shoulder made him shudder and move away. "Your father was an ambitious man, Draco, even in his school days. Even younger than you." He paced forward a few steps, eyes tilted downwards at the bones. Draco looked away, feeling like an intruder on a private moment, although it would last forever and they would not care. 

"This was his dream. While I rose to power, Lucius found this room and made it his own. He was keen on pain, on understanding it, and he devoted his mind to finding its secrets. He captured or bought creatures, alive, froze them into a state of stasis, tested and prodded until he could feel their screams. 

"I saw this, saw what a loyal servant he would make to me. I knew the past of his family, and how valuable they could be for certain causes. I wished to secure him- but how? It would have to have been done swiftly, in one maneuver, or else not at all. 

"Through sources and time, I found his heart, tucked away in a secret museum of living pain. There was only one thing he desired, too risky for him to procure, but nothing for me. Human specimens.

"It was just as I knew it would be. Lucius was pleased, elated at the methods by which I had acquired them, at the treachery and blood spilled on their flesh. I believe he enjoyed hearing it, like a child might hear his favorite fairytale again and again. He was mine."

There was the sudden flash of a knife, blinding Draco. He cried out a gasp, stumbled a little, watched as the invisibility cloak was shaken off and Harry Potter was flung to the floor.

"_Stupefy!_" 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Harry leapt towards him, meaning to plunge the dagger into Voldemort's neck but instead merely nicking it. The Dark Lord pivoted on his feet just as Harry began his rush, swinging out his wand easily. 

"_Stupefy!"_

Harry slid to Voldemort's feet, wand and dagger clattering across the stone floor. Frozen, and Draco was as well, gray eyes wide and then narrowed. Voldemort turned to face him slowly. "Here is your chance, Malfoy. Kill him."

His first instinct was 'no'. An appropriate reply however, took longer to form.

"...no."

"Don't make me impatient with you, boy. Kill him and get it done with."

"It seems too simple. I-,"

"It's what your father would have done. Nothing is too simple when it comes to murder." 

Draco narrowed his eyes, his fingers tracing the tabletop. "Obviously. But my father is dead, and this is what killed him." There were words etched beneath his touch. "It's mad to think I would want to follow his way." __

"It would be perpetually wise to do so," Voldemort said softly. Harry was tangled on the floor, half-covered by the cloak. "But…he who waits too long loses the prize, I'm afraid." He lowered his wand so that it pointed towards Harry's inert body. 

Draco didn't think in what he did next- he barely saw it himself. It was innate, some sort of buried instinct. He had the knife in his hand, taken from Harry. He was raising it and rushing at his master. He was plunging it in with a scream, barely muted. He was thrown off- he crashed into the desk, snapping and breaking like a wooden doll. 

He found himself bleeding. Voldemort was not. The knife had done nothing.

"Fool," he hissed. "You think I could not anticipate this? Idiot boy. You are too young to understand immortality, or not young enough."

"...No..." Draco was gasping, one hand pressed against his head where it throbbed- blood was covering the table, filling the cracks and crevices that had been worn in, there, by time. "..._no..." His vision was blurring and God, he was a fool, the greatest fool that had ever lived. Blood on the desk, spilling over the cracks, filling..._

...words. He stared as Voldemort spoke, but Draco wasn't listening. Harry was stirring faintly on the floor but too faintly to draw attention. The blood drew fine-lettered words across the table. A spell. Used by his father to freeze his victims for study. 

_Subsisto__...Saecula...Saeculorum_

_Subsisto__...Saecula...Saeculorum. To end...to all eternity. _

Voldemort had turned to Harry once again when Draco lifted his gaze slowly from the tabletop. Lifted his broken body from its surrender. He had been left for dead. 

He was alive, though, so alive that it felt as if he were in flames. The words burned in Draco's mouth like all-consuming fire and blazed through him, screaming, shot through his wand and fell upon the once-great lord. By the time the spell had fallen, greatness had fallen away as well. 

Voldemort had become little more than the museum exhibits he had so admired, the frozen specimens of pain. Living but already frozen, never to die again. 

It was over.

Draco fell to his knees, to his hands, to his collapse. He closed his eyes; his train of thought was fading and winding so aimlessly, it seemed pointless to live or think at all- sleep seemed more favorable, death seemed a distant possibility. 

He had done what his father would have called unthinkable: saved Harry Potter's life. There would be consequences. There would be a reprieve. But Father was dead, as was Voldemort. The only retribution he would receive could only come from himself.

It was better to sleep.

Draco closed his eyes and convinced himself to dream. He heard Harry stir and wake and realize...but did not look to see. Let Potter think he was dead. What he had done was inexcusable and it was going nowhere. He could not live with it and hardly wanted to. Somewhere he knew that, were he to live, he would wake everyday with it on his mind. His every living breath would give it away.

Damn Potter, damn him to hell- Potter had given him life, a poisoned apple. It gave him another chance for so many good things and yet opened the possibility to die again. Life was vulnerability.  

Let Potter think he was dead.

But Potter crawled over anyway, crouched over him. He was holding his breath though he didn't seem to care nor notice.

"Draco?" So hesitant. _Yes, Potter, I'm dead. Can't you tell?_

_For once I am the martyred hero. You didn't have to kill anyone, Potter, you were so afraid of it- and now I've gone and done all the work for you. _

Draco could feel Harry's hands at his throat. To choke him? No, now checking for a pulse, now brushing the side of Draco's face and tangling desperately through his hair. Traveling down the scratch marks and trailing blood onto his robes. 

Harry was crying and Draco thought dimly, _This__ is an accomplishment. But still, it hurt worse than anything that he had ever achieved. _

_You're__ no phoenix, Potter. Your tears won't heal anything. You gave me life once but you've got nothing left to help me. _

There was no way Harry could possibly hear his thoughts, meant to reassure. If anything, Harry became only more frenzied, his movements jerky, and then at last resort-

-Harry kissed him. Kissed him as if he could give the kiss of life. In Draco's mind there was a great explosion, sparking and burning like a wildfire behind his eyes. Once ignited, it remained lit. 

He was alive.

And he opened his eyes, though Potter's were tear-ringed and closed and could not see it, at once deciding to live. 

He kissed back. 


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_The Great Hall; __December 21, 1997__; about __11 PM___

"It's only been...a little more than a month."

"Hmm?" said Harry, distracted. A mix of light and shadow played across his face, catching a feeling of peace now and then. Not necessarily contentment- more the peace of someone who has stopped fighting the inevitable and instead has given in to it. The peace of acceptance. 

"It's over for you, Potter. You ended your war before it even started." Draco's gaze turned from his laced fingers to Harry's face. He smiled wryly. "How lucky."

The answering laugh was knife-bright and bitter. "Yes, it's been ended- but you ended it."

"No. I didn't." Draco looked away again, back to his hands. Harry scowled, trying to meet his eyes but failing. 

"What do you mean, no? Aren't you...proud? Or pleased, at the least? You've saved the _world_, Malfoy!"

"What's there to be proud of in doing that?" Draco said quietly. "I was a traitor."

"It doesn't count when you're doing the right thing." Harry waved it aside. 

Draco turned his head at this, gazing with such intensity that Harry was forced to look away. Those eyes were penetrating. Draco scarcely moved; Harry, in turn, felt scrutinized and...frozen. 

Then Draco sighed and his gaze quieted. He laughed, somewhat weakly. "It's so hard sometimes."

"What is?" 

"Understanding you. Never mind- forget what happened down there, will you, Potter?"

"Forget...?"

"Don't look so baffled."

Not as if he could help it. "Forget what happened down there, Malfoy? You make it sound so easy."

Draco shook his head and leaned towards Harry- silently, he reached for Harry's hand and laid it on top of his own, palms open skyward. Carefully, he shifted and stretched until their fingers were aligned. His other hand barely brushed Harry's leg as it reached for the phoenix feather wand- that went into the open palm as well, positioned so the tip passed between thumb and forefinger. 

As Draco curled his fingers inward, Harry's curled as well, until they clasped the wand together. 

Guiding Harry's hand, Draco moved the wand until it was pointed at his own chest. "There- it's so simple." Harry's hand was shaking slightly, catching Draco's notice. He tightened his grip. "What's wrong? Can't find your mark, Potter, even after I've given it to you?" But his voice also held a tremor. 

"You don't want to remember."

"_More than anything_." 

Harry looked closely at him. This time, when their gazes crossed, he was determined not to look away. He threw his wand to the side; it fell off and came to rest under a far table, caught between the stones.

"I don't care."

And then he kissed Draco Malfoy more fiercely than he had thought possible, even more so than when he had thought Draco was dead. His hands tangled through Draco's hair and made caresses that bordered on the edge of pain. He found a scar there, buried and hidden by gold, and thought of Voldemort and heroes and all the other pointless truths in the world. Of how fire burned yet, in doing so, brought only a chill that was more painful afterwards. A remembered need for flame. 

Draco inhaled sharply.

Harry released him and moved, just barely moved away. He was still so near that every time he spoke, their lips brushed- Draco's eyes had closed and now they flew open in numb wonder. 

"_I won't let you forget," said Harry fiercely, his rough voice breathing clouds of warm air against Draco's face. "_I won't let you forget, damn it!_"_

"If... if you don't want me to..." 

"Promise me!" Harry snarled, refusing to back down or give up or _fail_ ever again. Maybe he was human- he had human desires, human desperation if the moment begged it. Human weakness. But he would not relent, refused to believe that time would go on if Draco could not promise...would not give him that one small want. Harry would stop time before he let that happen.

"Potter..." There was a hint of pleading in Draco's voice. Harry could see his lips trembling faintly. 

"Promise!"

"Look- its snowing, Potter. Look for a second, the snow's falling inside!" Harry didn't have to look up to see the snow- he could feel it trailing down his neck and under the collar of his robes, saw it clinging to Draco's pale, pale hair. 

"I won't look," he said, never even turning an eye. "Not until you promise." 

Draco pulled away at this, leaving Harry stunned. "Malfoy-"

The wind was knocked out of him; he was pushed forcibly backwards before he could even finish his words. He saw Draco above him, framed by falling snow, and felt his heart freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw- the two would alternate until the end of time. 

"I'll never promise you anything, Potter," said Draco softly, and kissed him.

The Great Hall was dark and beautiful at this hour, but Harry found nothing darker or more beautiful than what would have been a dragon in winter, lying in dormancy amid the snow.

And was now simply himself and Draco Malfoy. 

FIN

A/N: The Dragon in Winter is finally finished- it almost hurts to think about it. Wow. I get to tell myself, now, that _this is the end. You've finally finished something you felt was worthwhile. It's almost too good to be true, ne?_

This was the first chaptered slash fic that I've ever completed, and after this experience, I think I definitely need to do finish more often. ^^ A lot of ink, sweat, and blood went into this story, and not just my own. I want to thank all my beta readers! FourEyedBookWorm, Sabrina Clarke, Galenbrethil, and Cass- this fic would have sucked at least 20x more if not for all of you. If there's any outstanding screw-ups in there, it's completely my fault for not listening to your sage advice. Both FourEyes and Sabrina have ff.net accounts; go read their stuff, I can assure you that it's much, much better than mine. Take my word for it, or at the very least GO SEE FOR YOURSELF!

Also, much thanks to my reviewers- thanks for taking the time to read my little tale!

Chlorine- My first reviewer! Thanks for your encouragement, I know it takes guts and more to be the very first.

Luna Aelf Writer- Thanks much to you too! 

BurningTyger- Aww, you've made me blush. Draco/Harry *is* wonderful, ne? ^_~

Rayne-Jelly- Yay! You came over here from Palindromes, didn't you? Glad to hear you liked this one. Here's your dose of closure!

Foureyed- ::huggles:: You're too good to me, I swear. Four reviews. *Four*! I could cry with joy...I must now plug you to death and go review everything you've ever written!

It's been a fantastic experience- thanks so much again! If you want more, go see Palindromes, my WiP- hopefully you won't be disappointed. 


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